Susanna Bauer Leaf Crochet

Susanna Bauer is a German artist who delicately crochets found objects into tiny, exquisite sculptures. Stones, sticks and leaves are transformed into unexpected geometric structures bound or held together using crochet.

What strikes me about her work is the sheer fragility of the materials – I can imagine the artist working away with her tiny hooks and needles, not daring to breathe for fear of the brittle leaves crumbling.

After the leaves are collected they are washed and dried for several weeks before the work can begin. The materials are not treated in any way to make them stronger, instead Bauer has to get to know the limits of each object and what it will allow her to do.

The artist manages to alter the structure of the object without eliminating their original organic beauty. Her respect and consideration for nature allows her to collaborate with it without altering it beyond recognition.

Bauer speaks of her work in relation to the vulnerability and limits of human connections; the delicate tensions of her work parallel the bonds of human relationships.

‘There is a fine balance in my work between fragility and strength; literally, when it comes to pulling a fine thread through a brittle leaf or thin dry piece of wood, but also in a wider context – the tenderness and tension in human connections, the transient yet enduring beauty of nature that can be found in the smallest detail, vulnerability and resilience that could be transferred to nature as a whole or the stories of individual beings’.